I love February. I might be slightly biased because it is my birthday month, but I think it’s a pretty great one. Sure, there is still snow on the ground (not if you live in Oman, though!), but the really dark days of winter start to evaporate, the sun comes out more and, depending on where you live, you might even start to see some signs of life returning to the garden. I hope that wherever you are, the veil of winter is lifting and you can see warm days ahead!

As one month is officially over, I thought it might be a good time to round up all the things I have done so far this year. I mentioned at the beginning of January that I didn’t make any resolutions for 2016 and, instead, I am working on doing what seems really relevant and valuable to my life at the moment. I’d like to share with you what I was able to accomplish with that approach because I am really pleased with myself and, I’ll admit, even a little bit proud.

Here we go. In January, I:

• Got new eyeballs – It was scary, it was gross and it was the best thing I have done for myself in years. I can’t believe how instantly different my life was after the big surgery. If you are thinking about doing it, stop thinking and do it. It’s incredible.
• Read three books – I used my new eyeballs to do some reading. Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert and two books by Haruki Murakami (Wild Sheep Chase and Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World). I enjoyed them all too, particularly Big Magic, which helped liberate my creativity in a wonderful way.
•  Travelled – We spent a night camping on a cliff side (spectacular) and a weekend in Dubai (not quite as spectacular, but necessary). We’ve also booked our next holiday (Sri Lanka!) and are soon to book our summer excursion to Indonesia for a diving extravaganza!
• Wrote – For years I have said I wanted to write one post a week on my blog and every week when I’ve sat down to write I’ve felt burdened and heavy. Without that one-a-week demand hanging over me, that “have to do” pressure of sitting down to write something every week, I have written 9 posts! That is crazy to me! I wasn’t stressed and frustrated. I didn’t feel I needed to do it. I just wrote because I had things I wanted to say. It’s been lovely.
• Met new friends – Part of the reason I have written so much is because I have thrown myself into the blog community in a truer way than in the past. I’ve found people I love to follow –Happy Fish Tarot, Sabiscut’s Catalog, Two Brown Feet, Violet’s Veg*n e-comics, Travel-Stained – and I love catching up with them online. It’s great to meet real people who have valuable things to add to the online world and to see life through their eyes. It is because of reading about their lives and their experiences that I have been to write so much more than I ever could before. Thanks, guys!
• Created a Morning Routine That I Love – I started to write about all the things this means to me and how I went about it but it is starting to become a post all of it’s own. It looks like I will be writing about this shortly, but in the meantime, know that this is by far the thing I am most proud of accomplishing this month and the thing that has made the biggest impact on my life, although it is probably the most mundane. Weird how that works, isn’t it?

That’s about it for January!

What about you? How did your January go? What were you able to accomplish that you are proud of? Even the smallest things are fabulous to stop and appreciate. I hope it was a good month for you!